Blogs

As many of you know, we've been hosting Mad World here on the Bitch blogs (and around town) since March, and we've had a great time discussing advertising, gender, and identity as a part of this series. However, as Johnny so eloquently said to Pony Boy, "nothing gold can stay." (OK, so he was quoting Robert Frost, but the cuteness of the young Ralph Macchio means we're going with the remediated version.) Our Mad World series is coming to a close, but that doesn't mean we're going to stop with analyzing ads. We'd never do that—it's our mission to bring you a feminist response to pop culture!

By the end (I'm hoping not for good, but for now, anyway) of Sleater-Kinney Corin Tucker's voice was a finely honed weapon, full of deep, slow, sexy soul and capable of an earsplitting wail, a bonechilling snarl, a rock'n'roll howl that didn't so much as defy gender as rip the guts straight out of it.

Her new record, 1,000 Years puts that voice front and center, without the thrash that made The Woods so threatening at the time.

Last night, observing that Joy Behar had said Sharron Angle was going to hell, Stephen Colbert joked, "I hadn't realized [Angle] would be on The View." Readers, I laughed. Indeed, I'm kind of surprised that I've gone this long writing about television from a feminist perspective without directly addressing the national embarrassment that is The View.

In many ways, on paper, The View appears to be the platonic ideal of feminism in media: it turns the microphone over to women exclusively, just like we've always wanted, right? Women talking to women about issues of importance to women: what could be more feminist than that? That claim to fame is bolstered by The View's excellent ratings for its time slot, and its cred even led it to land a coveted interview with President Obama this summer. (Question one: "Have you ever watched us?") And it's now, officially, spawned an imitator at CBS called The Talk.

On Monday, I took a look at LGBT candidates running for office. The general frame of that article, and of most of this series of articles for Bitch has been set within the confines of the US election structure—a within-system critique, taking a discursive analysis approach to the text and narratives of these 2010 midterm elections. I have not been asking about forms of government, the viability of democracy, nor envisioning some new electorate-driven strategy for liberating the oppressed. Those conversations happen, of course, but the focus here has been narrow because I have been interested in putting pressure on the many and varied contradictions floating in the messaging in these individual campaigns and in the media coverage of them as a whole. And I do see opportunities for feminist and progressive-minded people in investigating why those contradictions are so prevalent and so unexplored. Today, I'd like to push in a different direction. What would it mean to queer the election?

Two fat people sharing a moment together. How DARE they! And right in front of us, too!

Holy fatphobia, Bitch readers! Marie Claire blogger Maura Kelly had some very uncool and uninformed things to say about fat folks yesterday, starting with her belief that they should not be shown kissing on television. (Y'know, because eeewww!) Since we try to combat this type of size-based vitriol around here, I thought we might as well take a look at her "arguments" against ever seeing fat people do anything ever.

Creating art is walking through a minefield, especially in a society like this one that doesn't really do much to support said art. And since many of us critics are also creators, we know that we don't want to discourage creation, we want to make it better.

Ladyween (yes, that's what we're calling Halloween here at Bitch HQ these days—it's gonna catch on, trust us) is fast approaching. If you're still searching for the perfect costume, one that combines feminism with history and still leaves you looking sharp, look no further than the Adventures in Feministory archives!

You've heard about Girls to the Front: The True Story of the Riot Grrrl Revolution, and now you can hear directly from the author, Sara Marcus. Ellen Papazian (of Page Turner) interviews Marcus about what Riot Grrl meant today and now, how the internet compares to zine-swapping, pushback against Riot Grrl from both within and outside the movement, and why narrative ended up being the best choice for the book.

Yesterday the New York Times ran an article highlighting transgender candidates for office in this election cycle, asking if more trans candidates will translate into greater tolerance for the community. While there are a handful of transfolk running for office, there are also out lesbians, bisexuals, and gay men who are knee-deep in their own campaigns, and then there are the few LGBT members of Congress who are looking to hold on to their jobs. And although the Times may find some choice quotes from people that seeing transgender people in positions of power will generate greater acceptance, there doesn't seem to be any actual cause and effect at play.